ROLE OF THE STATE IN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS

These include the policies and steps that have been undertaken by the countries government such as labor regulations, training, education and recently Saudisation policies that targeted a reduction on foreign labor force in order to expand employment of the Saudi Citizens (Badigannavar and Kelly, 2012, p. An employment relationship is a portion of human resource strategy that ensures that individuals are used effectively into accomplishing the mission of the organization. According to Al-Asfour and Khan (2014, p,245), human resource strategy is the plan that is used by an organization to assist in gaining as well as maintaining a competitive edge in the market (Grimshaw et al. p. The program of employee relations aims at things that affect workers like benefits and enumerations assisting them in balancing both lives and work as well as ensuring that the working conditions are safe.

Among the disadvantages that were realized from it were high employee turnover, which was due to the requirements that were set in order to meet a threshold. This policy also came at a time that the number of unemployed citizens was many. The policy also led to a higher employee turnover due to the competition among companies that had offers for local talents hence they poached employees from other companies (Freeman, 2005, p. The Saudi Arabia Kingdom had been reported to have a high number of foreigners who were employed in the Kingdom (Freeman, 2005, p. This had reduced job opportunity for its citizens and the government sort to work on a plan that could help reduce the problem in the 1970s. The government realized that it was not in a position to cater for jobs for its citizens and decided to give Saudisation lax approach.

The aim was to reduce the number of foreigners in the employment field and create around 319 private jobs (Freeman, 2005, p. Currently, the Saudi Government has sort to increase the education level in the country as an approach to a successful Saudisation. They have constructed twenty-four universities and five hundred and eight colleges. An approximate number of schools in the kingdom is 34,750 through the number is still rising. Saudi has been experiencing rapid growth due to Saudisation policy as the welfare for its citizens is well catered for, as the government is the largest employer for Saudi Citizens (Rutledge et al. p. Job creation in the public sector for the Saudi Citizens bias ensured job security for the majority of its population. Opportunities in training as well as in education have also assisted in ensuring career development.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggested in 2004 that there should be equality in benefits being obtained from both the public and private sectors. Women and Saudisation Statistics showed that occupation of Saudi women in participating in the workforce was limited (Freeman, 2005, p. Women were mainly working as teachers and nurses as well as performing some errands in private companies that had strict monitoring from the government. A rate of literacy among female gender as per 1970 was also minimal in the kingdom as they only countered for 2% of the total population. In 2004, there was a turn of events as the population of women remained below that of men although in employment more women were employed than men were. This was a proof that actually level of education did not guarantee any employment in Saudi Arabia.

Psychological contracts are the accepted representation of belief that is linked to the terms of the contract that employer makes with an employee (Ahmed, 2016, p. Psychological contracts can be either written or unwritten depending on the kind of relationship that has been established. When this kind of contract is violated, it is perceived by employees that the company has let them down in ensuring fulfillment of the contract agreed upon. Control of Work Hours The government of Saudi had a major control on employment through labor laws that were ensured to be in a position of controlling working hours. Normally, working hours on a normal day was known to be eight hours (Freeman, 2005, p. When the contract is breached, the main intention of most employees is to leave the company or stop putting much effort into the success of the companies (Grimshaw et al.

p. They feel demoralized and their passion for work may begin to diminish. Such occurrences might make some of the companies to start being egocentric and focus only at what profits them at the expense of what might benefit the entire organization. Government as an actor in Employee relations During the post-financial crash, jobs become insecure even if there is the improvement in the unemployment rate. Intervention by the government into this assisted employer for many reasons. Having employees under the program was able to assist them in organizing workers hour as per the demands that the jobs they wanted to be done dictated. It also ensured that handling employees was cost effective since in case of low profits they could lower wages (Badigannavar and Kelly, 2012, p. Studies have shown that it gave the employers an opportunity to also deal with work fluctuations as it catered for a rationale for performing such actions.

ZHCs made the employees be in a position to gain more compensation like a holiday and sick pay. p. The government might have put many considerations in place to put new regulations in place instead of considering a ban. The opposition later pledged to ban the entire ZHCs. There were arguments that emerged against ZHCs that led to critics on the prior actions by the government and increased more discussion on awareness of the people especially with regards to the manifesto of Labour party. These arguments also highlighted the reasons why employees supported ZHCs (Freeman, 2005, p. Saudisation policy assisted the kingdom in various ways like through increasing literacy among the citizens and provision of job security to its citizens. Among the important factors in Saudisation is ensuring control over its labor market.

The Kingdom was seeking to find long-term solutions to a way of dealing with the local labor market. The policies also catered for women and minority who were given educational opportunity that catered for in the job market. It also assisted the youths as it assisted in pointing out talents among the citizens. A. Workforce localization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Issues and challenges.  Human Resource Development International, 17(2), pp. Albrithen, A. Child Poverty and Youth Unemployment in Saudi Arabia. and Duncan, P. The Impact of the Saudization Policy on Recruitment and Retention: A Case Study of the Banking Sector in Saudi Arabia.  Journal of Business, 1(5), pp. Freeman, R. Fighting for other folks’ wages: The logic and illogic of living wage campaigns. and Rubery, J. The governance of employment protection in the UK: how the state and employers are undermining decent standards.

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